From Tel Aviv to Austin with Texas Venture Partners

What connects the Startup Nation to the Lone Star State? We're witnessing a growing nexus that crosses tech, cultures, and economic verticals. To explore this emerging relationship, I'm joined by Tal Shmueli and Simone Ledeen from Texas Venture Partners. They're at the forefront of catalyzing this intersection between two innovative ecosystems.

Episode Highlights

• Israeli Entrepreneurs in Texas: Shared Values and Culture
• Texas Venture Partners' Thesis and Scope
• Israel's Tech Expertise and Its Fit with U.S. Defense Needs 
• Accelerating Innovation from Concept to the Battlefield
• Balancing Collaboration and Competition with Defense Primes
• Is Dual-Use a Distraction or an Opportunity?
• Austin and Texas as Emerging Hubs for Defense and Hard Tech  
• What's Next, Texas?
  • Tal Shmueli: "It's what's next for the people who are considering Texas as a home. It's not perfect, but it's pretty close to it. Let's work to make it the place we want it to be...So let's keep Texas, Texas and preserve the good."
  • Simone Ledeen: "When we look at the threats that Western civilization broadly is facing...I think this is a great place for like-minded people to be and to work on solving these problems and meeting these challenges."

Tal Shmueli: Website, LinkedIn
Simone Ledeen: Website, LinkedIn
Texas Venture Partners: Website, LinkedIn

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

What is Austin Next?

Austin is building the new tech, cultural, and intellectual stack. The region is a living laboratory to answer a single question: How do you build a global innovation superpower?

Host Jason Scharf dissects innovation from the individual to the ecosystem. From the soundstage to the data center to the fab, we decode the mechanics of Austin's innovation ecosystem.

As Atoms, Bits, and Intelligence converge, we explore how Hard Tech scale, digital velocity, and creative density collide. This is an audit of the future. We map the physics of the flywheel so builders and investors can navigate the chaos.